John I of Rome

The holy Hieromartyr John I of Rome was bishop of Rome from 523 to 526. He was the first bishop of Rome to travel to Constantinople on an embassy, and he died in the prison of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, which is why he is honoured as a confessor and martyr.

Election and embassy

He came from Tuscany, from the region of Siena, and had been a deacon of the Church of Rome. He was elected on 13 August 523, already frail in health. As a deacon he had sided with the antipope Laurentius, but in 506 he confessed his error and begged pardon of Pope Symmachus.

Italy was then ruled by Theodoric, an Arian king of the Ostrogoths. Emperor Justin I had issued a decree against the Arians of the East in 523, and Theodoric sent John to Constantinople, against his protests, to ask that it be eased. The king had threatened reprisals against the non-⁠Arian Christians of the West if the mission failed. The pope set out with several bishops and senators, and the emperor received him with honour. He obtained almost everything asked of him, except that clergy who passed from Arianism to Orthodoxy would not be restored to their ranks.

Prison

On his return to Ravenna, Theodoric suspected him of having plotted with the emperor and had him imprisoned. John died in his cell of neglect and ill treatment on 18 May 526 (the Romanian Wikipedia gives 20 May). His body was brought to Rome and laid in the basilica of Saint Peter.

In his time the monk Dionysius Exiguus, a native of Scythia Minor, drew up the Paschal tables in which years are counted from the Nativity of Christ. Saint John is commemorated on 18 May, a day also listed in the English-⁠language Orthodox calendar; formerly it was kept on 27 May. He is venerated especially at Ravenna and in Tuscany.